Customers mention

ABSTRACT

Techniques described enable an entity, such as a company employing an e-commerce website, to leverage user-provided content, such as customer reviews of an item, to better customers&#39; shopping experiences. To do so, customer reviews pertaining to an item may be examined to determine if the reviews contain links to other items. These links within the customer reviews may then be aggregated and sorted (e.g., ranked) according to certain criteria. The links may be sorted based on a number of times that the links are used in the reviews and/or on ratings of the items associated with the links. One or more of the links may then be displayed on the website. For instance, these links may appear on an item review page adjacent the customer reviews. Customers navigating to the item review page may then peruse the customer reviews as well as the displayed links that customers have used within the reviews.

RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of and claims priority to U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 11/958,133, filed on Dec. 17, 2007, the disclosureof which is incorporated by reference herein. This application alsoclaims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/984,319 filedon Oct. 31, 2007, which is incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

BACKGROUND

Companies utilizing e-commerce websites continually strive to make theire-commerce websites more dynamic, compelling, and easier for customersto locate, learn about, and purchase products. For instance, thesecompanies typically allow customers to upload reviews of items sold onthe website. That is, a customer who has purchased a certain item maycreate and upload a review of that item, whether the review is positive,negative, or neutral. These uploaded reviews may be helpful to othercustomers who are considering purchasing the reviewed item. In additionto providing a platform for such item reviews, these companies continueto seek ways to improve customers' online shopping and purchasingexperiences.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The detailed description is described with reference to the accompanyingfigures. In the figures, the left-most digit(s) of a reference numberidentifies the figure in which the reference number first appears. Theuse of the same reference numbers in different figures indicates similaror identical items.

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of an illustrative architecture forleveraging user-provided content, such as customer reviews, in anetworked environment. The networked environment includes multipleclients coupled to a server system that hosts an item catalog.

FIG. 2 is a screen rendering of an illustrative item review page. Here,the item review page includes customer reviews of a particular item (ahammer), as well as a list of other items mentioned in the customerreviews.

FIG. 3 is a functional flow diagram of an illustrative process foraggregating, sorting, filtering, and displaying links withinuser-provided content, such as customer reviews.

FIGS. 4-6 are flow diagrams of illustrative processes of examining andleveraging user-provided content.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments of the present disclosure are directed to, among otherthings, leveraging content, such as user-provided content, in anetworked environment or otherwise. For instance, an entity may examinemultiple pieces of content to determine if the multiple pieces ofcontent include element identifiers. Once the entity has determined thepresence of the element identifiers, the entity may sort (e.g., rank)the identifiers according to predetermined criteria. Once sorted, theentity may display or otherwise output the element identifiers in amanner based at least in part on the sorting. In some instances, theentity may display the element identifiers adjacent the multiple piecesof content from which the entity mined the element identifiers.

Element identifiers may comprise links (e.g., hyperlinks), plain text,pictures, references within a video, or any other defined component. Thepieces of content, meanwhile, may include text, audio, video, animation,and/or any other type of content. For instance, the pieces of contentmay comprise user-uploaded reviews of an element in an electroniccatalog, user-uploaded pages, and the like. The user-provided contentmay also comprise a user-uploaded video that displays or otherwisereferences (e.g., audibly) elements in the electronic catalog. Anelement, meanwhile, may be a product, a service, a sellable unit, adiscussion forum, a blog, a website, user-created content (e.g.,artwork), a media file, or anything else which may be represented by orassociated with an element identifier.

In one example, a merchant such as an e-commerce merchant may minecustomer-provided reviews of a particular product or products to find,within the reviews, links to other products or elements (e.g., adiscussion forum). The merchant may then sort these links according tocertain criteria, such as the frequency that each of the links appearsin the reviews or the rating associated with the products to which linkspertain. The merchant may then display or output some or all of theselinks to customers. For instance, the merchant may display a list orgrouping of the top-rated links (according to the particular criteriaestablished) adjacent the customer-provided reviews of the particularproduct to which the reviews pertain (e.g., on a product review web pageassociated with the particular product). By doing so, the merchantcapitalizes on the associations made, by customers, between theparticular product and other products or elements.

Additionally, the described techniques may be employed in multiple otherenvironments and for multiple other purposes. For instance, pieces ofcontent posted on a blog may be examined for links to news articles,other blogs, or the like. These links may then be sorted and displayedon the blog in a manner determined at least in part by the sorting. Forinstance, the links used most often in the examined content may bedisplayed first in an ordered list, and so on and so forth. Again, theclaimed techniques may be implemented in this and in many othersettings.

For purposes of discussion, however, techniques for leveraging contentsuch as user-provided content are described in the context of an itemcatalog hosted by a merchant website. One illustrative implementation ofthis environment is provided below. However, it should be appreciatedthat the described techniques may be implemented in multiple otherenvironments.

Illustrative System Architecture

FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative architecture 100 in which user-providedcontent may be mined and leveraged. Architecture 100 includes one ormore customers 102, who may operate one or more computing devices104(1), . . . , (M) to access a website 106 via a network 108. Network108 represents any one or a combination of multiple different types ofnetworks, such as cable networks, the Internet, and wireless networks.Again, while FIG. 1 illustrates website 106, other architectures mayemploy other networked or non-networked entities and components.

One or more servers 110(1), . . . , 110(N), perhaps arranged in acluster or as a server farm, host website 106. Other serverarchitectures may also be used to host the site. In the illustratedimplementation, meanwhile, web servers 110(1)-(N) are shown to includemultiple modules and components, which may run as software on the webservers themselves. The illustrated modules may be stored in memory(e.g., volatile and/or nonvolatile memory, removable and/ornon-removable media, and the like), which may be implemented in anymethod or technology for storage of information, such ascomputer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules, orother data. Such memory includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM,EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digitalversatile disks (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes,magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices,RAID storage systems, or any other medium which can be used to store thedesired information and which can be accessed by a computing device.While FIG. 1 illustrates servers 110(1)-(N) as containing theillustrated modules, these modules and their corresponding functionalitymay be spread amongst multiple other actors, each of whom may or may notbe related to website 106.

Website 106 is capable of handling requests from many users and serving,in response, various web pages that can be rendered at computing devices104(1)-(M). Website 106 can be any type of website that supports userinteraction, including online retailers, informational sites, socialnetworking sites, blog sites, search engine sites, news andentertainment sites, and so forth.

In the illustrative environment, website 106 represents a merchantwebsite that hosts an electronic catalog with one or more items. An itemincludes anything that the merchant wishes to offer for purchase,rental, licensing, subscription, viewing, informative purposes, or someother form of consumption. In some embodiments, the item may be offeredby the merchant for consumption. However, in some other embodiments, themerchant may host items that others are selling using the merchant'swebsite. An item can include a product, a service, a discussion forum, adigital download, a news clip, user-created content, information, orsome other type of sellable or non-sellable unit.

In FIG. 1, the electronic catalog is represented as an item catalog 112,which stores a collection of item records 114. Item catalog 112 isaccessible, directly or indirectly, by one or more of servers110(1)-(N). Some or all of item records 114, meanwhile, represent anassociated item being offered for sale or another form of consumption onwebsite 106 and contains information about the associated item. Forproducts such as books or music CDs, for example, the item record maycontain a description, images of the product, author/artist names,publication data, pricing, shipping information, and so forth. For othertypes of items, the item record may contain different informationappropriate for those items. Hereafter, the term “item” may be usedinterchangeably with the term “item record”.

FIG. 1 also depicts that servers 110(1)-(N) include, or have access to,an item manager 118, which facilitates access to and management of itemrecords 114 in item catalog 112. Item manager 112 allows websiteoperators to add or remove items to item catalog 112.

When a user requests information about an item from website 106, one ormore of servers 110(1)-(N) retrieve the item information from itemcatalog 112 and serve a web page containing the information to therequesting user computing device. Item catalog 112 may therefore containstatic web pages that are pre-generated and stored prior to suchrequests, or may alternatively store data that is used to populatedynamic web pages that are generated in response to such requests.

Item catalog 112 may further include one or more pieces of content 116,which may be content provided in whole or in part by customers 102. Forinstance, content 116 may include customer reviews of an item withinitem catalog 112. FIG. 1 depicts an illustrative item 114 as a hammer,with the hammer being associated with multiple customer reviews 116(1),(2), . . . , (S). Website 106 may enable customers 102 to upload orotherwise provide customer reviews of items within item catalog 112(and/or items within another item catalog hosted by another site). Assuch, one or more of customers 102 may have previously provided each ofcustomer reviews 116(1)-(S).

In addition to providing customers 102 with a platform to create and/orupload these reviews, website 106 may also provide a tool for customers102 to insert links into these reviews. These links may correspond toone or more of items 114 within item catalog 112. For instance, some ofthe links may be hyperlinks to item detail pages associated with (orother pages associated with) items within item catalog 112. Some ofthese links may also be hyperlinks to discussion forums or the likehosted by website 106, or by some other site. Some or all of customerreviews 116(1)-(S) may therefore include links to other items (e.g.,other hammers, tools, or any other items), discussion forums (e.g., adiscussion forum on a particular hammer, tools generally, or the like),websites, and/or any other type of link.

In some instances, website 106 allows users to insert links bysurrounding a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) with double brackets oneither side of the text (e.g., “[[text]]”). Website 106 mayalternatively or additionally provide a graphical user interface (GUI)to insert links into customer reviews 116(1)-(S). When website 106exposes a GUI to an end-user such as a customer 102, server-side logicemployed by the website may view the link in the same manner as if thelink had been manually typed. That is, the server-side logic on website106 may read the link as “[[text]]”, even though the link may merelyappear to customer 102 as “text”. Of course, while one example has beengiven, website 106 may allow customers 102 to insert links in many otherways.

With this in mind, FIG. 1 further illustrates that servers 110(1)-(N)include, or have access to, a customer-mentions module 120.Customer-mentions module 120 analyzes and leverages content provided bycustomers 102 to improve customer experiences on website 106. Forinstance, customer-mentions module 120 may extract certain data fromcustomer reviews 116(1)-(S) in order to improve a shopping experience ofa future customer, as described in detail below and illustrated by FIG.2. This data may include links (e.g., hyperlinks), plain text, pictures,or any other defined category of data. While the illustrated example isdescribed with reference to links, other examples may similarly employmultiple other types.

As illustrated, customer-mentions module 120 includes a link-identifyingmodule 122, a link-ranking module 124, a link-filtering module 126, anda link-display module 128. Link-identifying module 122 functions toidentify links within one or more pieces of customer-provided content,such as customer reviews 116(1)-(S). For instance, link-identifyingmodule 122 may parse a corpus of text associated with customer reviews116(1)-(S) to identify the presence of any links within the reviews. Ininstances where links appear within a set of double brackets(“[[text]]”) as discussed above, module 122 parses the corpus of text insearch of one or more sets of double brackets. Responsive to findingsuch a set of brackets, module 122 stores the text within the bracket asa link. Link-identifying module 122 aggregates each link found withincustomer reviews 116(1)-(S) for analysis by link-ranking module 124.

Link-ranking module 124 functions to receive the aggregated links fromthe link-identifying module 122 and rank the links according topredetermined criteria. In other instances, link-ranking module mayinstead sort the links in a manner other than ranking. For instance,this criteria may include a number of times that each link appearswithin reviews 116(1)-(S) and/or a rating of an item associated witheach link (e.g., a customer or critic rating). Other criteria mayinclude a reputation of a customer who authored the review (e.g., acustomer's reputation score on website 106), a conversion rate for alink or a page associated with the link (i.e., a percentage of customerswho purchase an item after visiting a corresponding link), anavailability of an item associated with a link, a profitability of anitem associated with a link, a helpfulness of a review in which the linkappears, an order in which links appear in a review, a similarity scoreor tag agreement between the item being reviewed and an item associatedwith a link, and/or any other factors that may be helpful in sorting thelinks. Link-ranking module 124 may also rank the aggregated links in arandom fashion in some instances. Additionally, link-ranking module 124may employ a certain set of criteria based upon an item being reviewed,or based upon some other factor or factors. For instance, the certainset of criteria employed may depend upon a product category associatedwith the reviewed item.

In one embodiment, link-ranking module 124 ranks links according to anumber of times that each link appears within customer reviews116(1)-(S) and a rating of an item associated with each link. Here,module 124 would deem a link appearing a most number of times and havinga highest rating as the highest-ranking link. Conversely, module 124would deem a link appearing the fewest number of times and having thelowest rating as the lowest-ranking link.

Once link-ranking module 124 has ranked each of the links,link-filtering module 126 may receive the ranked links and may filterout a portion of the links according to certain criteria. For instance,link-filtering module 126 may filter out links corresponding to items initem catalog 112 that the viewing customer has already purchased. Here,the customer may have identified his or herself by signing in to his orher account on website 106. Module 126 may use this information todetermine which of items 114 the customer has previously purchased, andmay filter out some or all of the links corresponding to these items.

Link-filtering module 126 may also filter links according to othercriteria. This criteria may include, for instance, whether an itemassociated with a link is available in inventory or whether a linkcorresponds to an item that is very similar to the item being reviewedor very similar to items corresponding to other links having also beensorted. For instance, link-filtering module 126 may filter out one oftwo links that correspond to item detail pages of a same make of MP3player with differing colors. That is, if the sorted links include alink to a page associated with a yellow MP3 player and a link to a pageassociated with the same MP3 player in green, then module 126 may filterout one of these semi-duplicative links. Of course, in some embodimentsit may be advantageous to display both links and, hence, module 126 maynot filter either link. Additionally, in some embodiments,customer-mentions module 120 may not employ link-filtering module 126 atall.

Once the links within the content (e.g., customer reviews 116(1)-(S))have been aggregated, sorted, and possibly filtered, link-display module128 receives the links to display some portion thereof to the user.Link-display module 128 may thus include some policy specifying a numberof the sorted links to display, such as the five top-ranking links.Link-display module 128 may therefore cause these links to be renderedat computing device 104(1) operated by one of customers 102. Of course,while the instant example describes displaying these links, otherembodiments may output this information in other suitable manners (e.g.,audibly, with use of video or animations, and the like).

In instances where the user-provided content comprises customer reviews116(1)-(S), link-display module 128 may display these links on a samepage as the reviews. For instance, if one of customers 102 navigates toa review page 130 associated with the illustrated hammer, this page mayinclude, and this customer may accordingly see, customer reviews116(1)-(S) in a first area of the page and some or all of the linkscontained therein in a second area. While FIG. 1 illustrates arepresentation of such a review page in the form of page 130, detailsassociated with an illustrative review page are illustrated by anddescribed with reference to FIG. 2. Additionally, link-display module128 may display these links on other pages, such as item detail pages,or the like.

To access page 130, as well as other web pages that website 106 hosts,customers 102 utilize computing devices 104(1)-(M) (also referred to as“client computers” or simply “clients”). While FIG. 1 illustratescomputing devices 104(1) and 104(M) as a PC and a personal digitalassistant (PDA), respectively, these computing devices may beimplemented as any number of other types of computing devices. Thesedevices may include, for instance, PCs, laptop computers, PDAs, mobilephones, set-top boxes, game consoles, and so forth. As illustrated,computing devices 104(1)-(M) are each equipped with one or moreprocessors 132 and memory 134 to store applications and data.

According to some embodiments, a browser application 136 is stored inmemory 134 and executes on one or more of processors 132 to provideaccess to website 106. For example, customers 102 may employ browser 136to access website 106 by submitting a request, such as in the form of auniform resource locator (URL), to servers 110(1)-(N). Upon receivingthe request, servers 110(1)-(N) return a page, such as page 130, back tothe requesting client computer in the illustrated implementation.Browser 136 then renders pages served by website 106 on an associateddisplay. In addition to a user navigating via browser 136, othersoftware applications (browsers or otherwise) could likewise operate toreceive and present page 130. Note also that while the above embodimentsare described in the context of a web-based system, other types ofclient/server-based communications and associated application logiccould be used.

Illustrative Customer-Mentions Pages

With an example architecture 100 in mind, FIG. 2 depicts an illustrativeitem review page 200 in which aggregated and sorted links may bedisplayed to one or more of customers 102. Here, page 200 pertains tocustomer reviews for a particular hammer offered for sale in itemcatalog 112. While FIG. 2 illustrates an item review page, otherembodiments may employ multiple other types of pages, such as itemdetail pages, search results pages, customer discussion pages, and thelike.

Page 200 includes a browser toolbar 202 and a content area 204. Browsertoolbar 202 enables a user of website 106 to navigate to a page such asitem review page 200. Content area 204, meanwhile, includes a title 206,an illustration 208, and item details 210. Title 206 entitles page 200as “Customer Reviews for the ABC Hammer”, while illustration 208comprises an image of this hammer. Item details 210 include a rating, aprice, and an availability of the illustrated hammer. While a fewillustrative item details have been illustrated, other pages may employmore or fewer details than page 200.

Content area 204 further includes an item-review area 212 and acustomer-mentions area 214. Item-review area 212 includes multiple itemreviews 216, 218, 220, and 222, each pertaining to the illustrated ABChammer. Customer-mentions area 214, meanwhile, displays data mined fromwithin the item reviews. While the illustrated example displays links,other embodiments may display or output other data, such as pictures orthe like.

As discussed above, website 106 may provide customers 102 with aplatform to provide reviews of items 114 in item catalog 112. Also asdiscussed above, website 106 may also enable customers 102 to insertlinks within these reviews. In some instances, these links pertain toitems in item catalog 112. For instance, an inserted link may be ahyperlink that points to an item detail page or other page associatedwith a particular item. Additionally, each review may include a rating(e.g., five stars) as well as a title (“A Quality Tool”). While notillustrated, these reviews may further include a name of a customer whoauthored the review, as well as other additional information present intraditional customer reviews.

With this in mind, customer review 216 includes a link 224 entitled “XYZhammer” and a link 226 entitled “QRS hammer”. Here, the author ofcustomer review 216 likely inserted these links into the review, asenabled by web site 106. Additionally, link 224 likely points to a pageassociated with the XYZ hammer (e.g., an item detail page for thishammer), while link 226 likely points to a page associated with the QRShammer. Therefore, if a customer who is currently viewing page 200selects link 224, website 106 would render the page to which the linkpoints, such as the item detail page for the XYZ hammer.

Next, customer review 218 includes a link 228 entitled “this hammer” anda link 230 entitled “this one”. Here, the author of review 218 haslikely altered the displayed title of these links, which again likelylead to pages associated with hammers other than the ABC hammer.Customer review 220 similarly includes links 232 (“ABC Drill”), 234(“ABC Level”), and 236 (“ABC Stud Sensor”). Finally, review 22 includeslinks 238 (“JKL hammer”), 240 (“XYZ hammer”) and 242 (“QRS hammer”).

As described above, link-identifying module 122 may parse each ofreviews 216-222 (as well as any other reviews or other contentpertaining to the ABC hammer) to identify links 224-242 within thereviews. Link-ranking module 124 may then rank these identified linksaccording to predetermined criteria, as discussed above. Link-filteringmodule 126 may then filter links according to predetermined criteria.Here, for example, module 126 may determine that a user who is viewingpage 200 has previously purchased the ABC stud sensor, and mayaccordingly filter out this link, such that the link is not displayed incustomer-mentions area 214. Finally, link-display module 128 may displaysome or all of the aggregated, sorted, and/or filtered links incustomer-mentions area 214.

As illustrated, customer-mentions area 214 is entitled “[i]temsmentioned in these reviews”. Area 214 also includes a link 244 entitled“QRS Hammer”, a link 246 entitled “XYZ Hammer”, and a link 248 entitled“Hammer Discussion Forum”. Link 244 may point to a same page as links226 and 242 (both entitled “QRS hammer”). Again, this page may comprisean item detail page for the QRS hammer, another page associated with theQRS hammer, or some other page. Link 246 may similarly point to an itemdetail page or other page associated with XYZ hammer, while link 248points to a discussion forum concerning the item category “hammers”.While area 214 illustrates a few exemplary links, other embodiments mayinclude more or less links pointing to the same or different pages, suchas item discussion pages, search results pages, pages hosted by anotherwebsite, or any other type of webpage.

In addition to illustrating links found with customer reviews 216-222,customer-mentions area 214 may also include other details orinformation, which may correspond or associate with items to which links244-248 pertain. For instance, area 214 here includes an illustration250, a rating 252 (e.g., an average customer rating, a critic-providedrating, or the like), and a price 254 of the QRS hammer. Area 214 alsoincludes an indication 256 of a number of customer reviews in which link244 appears (here, three). As illustrated, customer-mentions area 214may similarly include this information for links 246 and 248. Otherembodiments may include more or less information than illustratedcustomer-mentions area 214.

By mining, sorting, and displaying some or all of links 244-248, website106 leverages information provided by customers 102, who may have firsthand knowledge regarding an item such as the ABC Hammer. Therefore, whena potential buyer navigates to a page, such as item review page 200, thepotential buyer may not only see item reviews for the ABC Hammer, butmay also view links to other items (e.g., products, forums, etc.) thatmay also benefit the customer. As such, website 106 may improve ashopping experience of customers generally. As discussed above, otherenvironments (e.g., blogs, news sites, etc.) and architectures maysimilarly employ these tools to better other types of experiences.

Illustrative Customer-Mentions Processes

FIG. 3 depicts a functional flow diagram of an illustrative process 300for aggregating, sorting, filtering, and displaying element identifiers,such as links, present in user-provided content, such as customerreviews. Each operation with this figure can be implemented in hardware,software, or a combination thereof.

Process 300 includes operation 302, which examines user-provided contentfor links or some other element identifiers, such as pictures, a certainstring of plain text, or the like. As illustrated adjacent operation302, a piece of content, such as customer review 220, may be examined toidentify links 232, 234, and 236 within the review. As described above,link-filtering module 122 may examine the review.

Next, operation 304 represents that in addition to examination of asingle review, multiple other pieces of content may be examined.Adjacent operation 304 is a representation of multiple customer reviews116(1)-(S) being examined to aggregate links 1-P. Operation 306 thenrepresents link-ranking module 124 ranking some or all of the aggregatedlinks 1-P. Operation 308 further illustrates that link-filtering module126 may filter out a portion of the aggregated links. In the illustratedexample, link-filtering module 126 has filtered out at least the second-and fourth-ranked links.

Finally, operation 310 represents displaying one or more of theaggregated, ranked, and filtered links. Adjacent operation 310 is anillustration representing that link-display module 128 may displaycustomer-mentions area 214 from FIG. 2. As such, link-display module 128may display the top-three ranked links. In other embodiments, more orfewer links may be displayed, either according to each link's respectiveranking, or even randomly.

Operation

FIGS. 4-6 depict additional illustrative processes 400-600 forimplementing the techniques discussed above and claimed below. Theseprocesses are illustrated as a collection of blocks in a logical flowgraph, which represent a sequence of operations that can be implementedin hardware, software, or a combination thereof. In the context ofsoftware, the blocks represent computer-executable instructions that,when executed by one or more processors, perform the recited operations.Generally, computer-executable instructions include routines, programs,objects, components, data structures, and the like that performparticular functions or implement particular abstract data types. Theorder in which the operations are described is not intended to beconstrued as a limitation, and any number of the described blocks can becombined in any order and/or in parallel to implement the process.

Process 400 includes operation 402, which represents receiving customerreviews pertaining to an item. Some or all of these customer reviews mayinclude a corpus of text. Operation 404 then displays at least some ofthe customer reviews on an item review page corresponding to the itembeing reviewed. Next, operation 406 examines the corpuses of text of thecustomer reviews to determine if these corpuses contain links, such aslinks to other items in item catalog, discussion forums, or other typesof links. Operation 406 may also determine these links in other ways.For instance, the links may be stored in a database or a file, which maybe accessed to determine the links. Operation 408 then aggregates eachdetermined link to form a pool of links.

This pool of links is then ranked, at operation 410, according to afirst set of criteria. For instance, these criteria may include a ratingof an item associated with a respective link or a number of times that arespective link appears within the corpuses of text. Operation 412 thenfilters links from the pool of links according to a second set ofcriteria. These criteria may include whether or not a particular userhas previously purchased an item associated with a respective link.Finally, operation 414 displays, on the item review page, one or more ofthe links from the pool of links.

FIG. 5 illustrates process 500, which includes operation 502, whichenables users to insert links within user-provided content. Operation504 then determines multiple links in the user-provided content. Theselinks may be determined by examining (e.g., parsing) the content or byaccessing or otherwise receiving information from a database or filethat contains an indication of these links. In some instances, theselinks correspond to elements in an electronic catalog, such as items forsale or consumption, discussion forums, and the like. Next, operation506 determines a number of times that each of the multiple links appearsin the user-provided content, while operation 508 determines a ratingfor each element associated with each of the links.

Operation 510 then ranks the multiple links according to predeterminedcriteria, which may include the number of times that each of the linksappear in the user-provided content and/or a rating for the elementsassociated with the links. Operation 512 then displays one or more ofthe links at least in part according to the ranking.

Finally, FIG. 6 depicts illustrative process 600, which includesoperation 602. This operation aggregates element identifiers (e.g.,links, text, pictures, etc.) within multiple pieces of user-providedcontent. Operation 604 then ranks the aggregated element identifiers.This may be based at least in part on a number of times that arespective element identifier appears within the multiple pieces ofuser-provided content and/or on a rating of an element associated with arespective element identifier. This may also be based on a helpfulnessrating (e.g. as voted on by customers 102) of a piece of content inwhich the respective link appears. For instance, an element identifierwithin a “very helpful” or highly rated piece of content may be rankedhigher than an element identifier within a less helpful or lower ratedpiece of content. This ranking may also be based at least in part on atime at which a respective piece of content was provided. For instance,if a first piece of content such as an item review was uploaded to awebsite more recently than a second piece of content, then elementidentifiers within the first piece of content may be ranked higher thanelement identifiers within the second piece (at least according to thatfactor). The ranking may also be based on multiple other factors, eithersingly or in combination, such as a reputation of the user who provideda piece of content, a sales rank or other rating of an elementassociated with an element identifier, and so forth.

Next, operation 606 filters the element identifiers, after whichoperation 608 causes display of at least some of the aggregated andsorted element identifiers. Finally, operation 610 causes display of atleast some of the multiple pieces of user-provided content, possibly ona same page as the displayed element identifiers. For instance, process600 may display both element identifiers as well as user-providedcontent on an element review page associated with a certain element.

CONCLUSION

Although the subject matter has been described in language specific tostructural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understoodthat the subject matter defined in the appended claims is notnecessarily limited to the specific features or acts described. Rather,the specific features and acts are disclosed as illustrative forms ofimplementing the claims.

1. A method comprising: under control of one or more computer systemsconfigured with executable instructions, determining an identity of eachof multiple links in user-provided customer reviews, each of themultiple links corresponding to a respective element in an electroniccatalog, the multiple links defining one or more pools of links; rankingthe multiple links of the one or more pools of links according topredetermined criteria; and displaying one or more of the multiple linksat least in part according to the ranking.
 2. A method as recited inclaim 1, wherein the predetermined criteria includes a rating of theitem to which the customer reviews pertain, a number of times that arespective link is used in the customer reviews, a reputation of acustomer who authored a respective customer review in which a respectivelink appears, or a conversion rate for a respective link or a pageassociated with a respective link.
 3. A method as recited in claim 1,further comprising aggregating each of the multiple links to elements toform the one or more pools of links to elements in the electroniccatalog.
 4. A method as recited in claim 3, further comprising filteringthe one or more pools of links according to a second set ofpredetermined criteria prior to displaying the one or more multiplelinks.
 5. A method as recited in claim 4, further comprising displayingat least some of the user-provided customer reviews on an item reviewpage corresponding to the element to which the customer reviews pertain.6. A method as recited in claim 5, further comprising: determining auser to which the item review page is being displayed; and determining,for each link in the one or more pools of links, whether the user haspreviously purchased an item corresponding to the link, and wherein thesecond set of predetermined criteria includes whether or not the userhas previously purchased items corresponding to each link of the one ormore pools of links.
 7. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein thedetermining of each of the multiple links comprises examining theuser-provided customer reviews or examining a database that includes anindication of each of the links.
 8. A method as recited in claim 1,wherein at least one of the multiple links is a hyperlink that points toa detail page associated with a respective element in the electroniccatalog.
 9. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein at least one of theelements comprises an item for sale in the electronic catalog, andwherein the user-provided customer reviews comprise multiple reviews ofthe item for sale or a discussion forum.
 10. A method as recited inclaim 1, further comprising determining a number of times that each ofthe multiple links appears in the user-provided customer reviews, andwherein the predetermined criteria comprises the number of times thateach of the multiple links appear in the user-provided customer reviews.11. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising determining arating for each element associated with each of the multiple links, andwherein the predetermined criteria comprises the rating for each elementassociated with each of the multiple links.
 12. A method as recited inclaim 1, wherein the displaying comprises displaying a list of multiplelinks in an order determined by the ranking of the multiple links.
 13. Amethod as recited in claim 1, wherein the one or more displayed linksare displayed on a same page as the user-provided customer reviews. 14.A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising enabling users toinsert, in the user-provided customer reviews, the links to the elementsin the electronic catalog.
 15. A method as recited in claim 1, furthercomprising displaying details of elements associated with the one ormore displayed links adjacent the one or more displayed links.
 16. Oneor more computer-readable storage media storing computer-executableinstructions that, when executed on one or more processors, perform actscomprising: aggregating element identifiers located within multiplepieces of user-provided comments, the element identifiers comprisinglinks to elements in an electronic catalog, pictures of elements in theelectronic catalog, references of elements in the electronic catalogwithin a video, or plain text identifying elements in the electroniccatalog; ranking the aggregated element identifiers according topredetermined criteria; and causing display of at least some of theaggregated element identifiers based at least in part on the ranking.17. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim 16, whereinthe predetermined criteria includes one or more of a number of timesthat a respective element identifier appears within the multiple piecesof the user-provided comments, a rating of an element associated with arespective element identifier, a helpfulness rating of a piece of auser-provided comment in which an element identifier is located, or atime at which a respective piece of a user-provided comment wasprovided.
 18. One or more computer-readable media as recited in claim16, wherein the pieces of the user-provided comments comprise userreviews of elements in an electronic catalog or user-provided posts on adiscussion forum or an online blog.
 19. One or more computer-readablemedia as recited in claim 16, further storing computer-executableinstructions that, when executed on the one or more processors, performan act comprising filtering one or more of the aggregated elementidentifiers such that the one or more filtered element identifiers arenot displayed to a user.
 20. One or more computer-readable media asrecited in claim 19, wherein the filtering of the one or more aggregatedelement identifiers is based at least in part on whether the user haspreviously purchased an element associated with an element identifier oron an availability of the element.
 21. One or more computer-readablemedia as recited in claim 16, further storing computer-executableinstructions that, when executed on the one or more processors, performan act comprising causing display of the pieces of user-providedcomments on a same page as the displayed element identifiers.
 22. Asystem comprising: one or more processors; a memory, accessible by theone or more processors; a database stored in the memory and configuredto store customer reviews of items in an electronic catalog; alink-identifying module stored in the memory and executable on the oneor more processors to identify links within the customer reviews storedin the database, the links defining more or more pools of links; and alink-ranking module stored in the memory and executable on the one ormore processors to rank the identified links of the one or more pools oflinks according to predetermined criteria.
 23. A system as recited inclaim 22, wherein at least some of the links within the customer reviewscomprise hyperlinks that point to item detail pages associated withrespective items in the electronic catalog.
 24. A system comprising: oneor more processors; a memory, accessible by the one or more processors;a graphical user interface module stored in the memory and executable onthe one or more processors to output a graphical user interfacecomprising: a first screen area to display multiple discrete pieces ofuser-provided comments that include multiple links, the multiple linksdefining one or more pools of links; and a second screen area separatefrom and adjacent to the first screen area to display at least some ofthe multiple links within the user-provided comments, wherein thedisplayed links are chosen and arranged within the second screen areaaccording to one or more criteria.
 25. A system as recited in claim 24,wherein: the user-provided comments comprise customer reviews pertainingto an item for sale in an electronic catalog; at least some of the linkswithin the user-provided comments point to an item detail pageassociated with another item for sale in the electronic catalog; and thefirst and second screen areas appear on an item review page associatedwith the item to which the customer reviews pertain.
 26. A system asrecited in claim 24, wherein: at least some of the links within theuser-provided comments pertain to elements in an electronic catalog; andthe second screen area is further to display details associated with theelements in the electronic catalog to which the links pertain.